Edgar Wright on Why Ultron Won’t Be in Ant-Man

20Aug

Hey people, time to talk film news again. Now obviously I haven’t done a video on anything film news related for while now even though there’s been many superhero-related things to talk about. But that’s just be en down to laziness and a lack of interesting things to post about. Luckily today I read something on superherohype concerning the upcoming Ant-Man film that I think should be blogged about. The following information is from IGN:

“While doing press for this week’s release of The World’s End, director Edgar Wright has been repeatedly asked about his next film, the long-gestating adaptation of Marvel’s Ant-Man. And even though Ultron was announced at San Diego Comic-Con as the villains of the Avengers sequel and has ties to Ant-Man/Dr. Hank Pym in the comics, Wright says the robotic nemesis won’t be in his movie.

“(Ultron) was never in my script. Because even just to sort of set up what Ant-Man does is enough for one movie,” Wright told The Huffington Post. “It’s why I think Iron Man is extremely successful because it keeps it really simple. You have one sort of — the villain comes from the hero’s technology. It’s simple. So I think why that film really works and why, sometimes, superhero films fail — or they have mixed results — because they have to set up a hero and a villain at the same time. And that’s really tough. And sometimes it’s unbalanced.”

Wright also said he believes the fact that Ant-Man is not as well known to general audiences as some of the Avengers gives him a degree of creative freedom: “For the one percent of people who are like, ‘Wait, Hank Pym would never do that!’ there’s 99 percent going, ‘Who’s Hank Pym?’ So, to me, the source material is great but it also frees you up to be like: I’m going to make a movie. The movie is not going to represent 50 years of Marvel comics because that’s impossible. But I’m going to make a 100 minute movie — or 110 minutes.”

Ant-Man opens November 6, 2015.”

What I find interesting about this is the fact that Wright himself highlighted the fact that Ultron wasn’t part of his Ant-Man film. That is the key point that stands out. So all those people bitching to Joss Whedon about this when he made the announcement jumped the gun too early, Ultron’s origin is different because it isn’t part Edgar Wright’s story in the first place. But it is interesting to see that Wright took the whole Ultron element out, I mean I know explains why, but it does present a whole new set of obstacles for the live-action films have sort out because they’re changing the comic book law.

But I do understand Wright’s logic behind his decision. Setting up both heroes and villains in the same film can be a tricky business and some films suffer because of the extra time given or the lack of time given to the villains. So if Wright wants focus on Hank Pym specifically I say let him, as long as he has a good story to tell for the character and can make him cooler than he actually doesn’t appear in the comics then I hope for good stuff in 2015.

3 responses to “Edgar Wright on Why Ultron Won’t Be in Ant-Man”

That’s a really good point about the challenge of developing a hero and the villain. I’m not familiar with Ant Man so it doesn’t bother me if Stark or someone else is the creator of Ultron in Avengers 2, though I can see why comic-book purists may be disappointed.